Wednesday, November 2, 2005 | by nathan

Letters In The Attic and Other Shinies

Wow. What a week.

Apparently Wednesday night is the best time for blogging, so get ready for more of this, as tonight is one of my “lab nights.”

Current song: “Landscape” by Robert Miles

Last Monday, a girl in my Monday night writing class, Mirza, told me that a) she had never been to a gay bar, and b) she had never been to sing karaoke. So, tomorrow night, we are remedying both of these things, our other writing class friend Leah, who is one of the most fabulous girls I know. She cuts holes in her sweaters. I like that in a girl. Well, here they are:

These people are, left to right, Drew and Charlie, Mirza and Leah. Charlie always writes stories about doing drugs with his high school friends and how they always did fucked-up shit to cats. It’s not as frightening as it sounds; he has the greatest voice of anyone ever, and these big eyes that smile for him. Really, just a stand-up lad.

Drew is from New Orleans. His writing always begins interestingly enough, then from out of nowhere there comes this current of intensity and feeling that you didn’t expect that sweeps you under.

Mirza is retired military, and always writes very visual stories that make me want to know her world, and her family, better. Leah just rocks my face.

With these two women I will sing karaoke at the Ledo tomorrow. Yowza. I haven’t done this in quite some time, and I wish to God that Erica was going to be in town, and not Stillwater, to come with us, because I need her to sing “Love Shack” with me before a night of karaoke feels complete. Alas.

My life - how I love you.

Song: “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay. This song is a perfect example of why I do not listen to the radio, ever, unless it is NPR: if I did, this song would no longer give me goosebumps because I would have heard it a million times already. Radio treats music like pizza, and encourages us to gorge as quickly, as completely, as possible. Music is like wine, or chocolate: to be savored. God, I am pretentious.

Our History Channel producers fly in a week from today. We negotiated a shooting schedule with them today that allows me to continue in my duties as an usher in Monica Ankenman’s wedding, which makes me hella happy, despite my pimp tux, which I will pick up from Kayne in a week. Yahoo. There will be pictures, right here on this blog, yes there will. Thank you Jonathan and Tish for not visiting this same funness on me last year.

Song: “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper

The producers asked us today if we could add another segment to our already-packed schedule. Ana wasn’t here to intervene on our behalf, and so we, in our naivete and inexperience, got roped into making what was once a five-minute segment into a fifteen-minute one. And we have two and a half days to get all this bullshit done. Whoop.

Song: “These Foolish Things” by Stan Getz

But anyway, on to something actually interesting…

So, last weekend Brian and I were poking around in our attic, trying to figure out how to drop a cable down into the wall behind our television so we could get cable without having to pay Cox $25 to come install a jack. We were up there, and we were looking around at all this really old stuff that had been left. We found old issues of Life magazine and Popular Mechanics from 1947 and a stack of letters from 1933 and 1934. It appeared that they had belonged to the previous owner of the house. The letters are brittle and yellowed, and all still in envelopes, and as I read through them I got wrapped up. They were badly written love letters, full of phrases like “Beloved Love” and “Honey Sweetheart” but there was a sweetness behind them, even though a few of them contained profuse apologies for a series of arguments. I’m not sure if the woman to whom they were addressed, whose name was Elizabeth and who was a Tri-Delta at OU, married this guy, but they seemed to have a bit of an embattled relationship. Oh, and also, the guy and his mother had a fondness for drinking beer together. So there’s that.

Also there was a memory box full of things from the Pauls Valley High School class of 1928 - things like little notes between friends, programs to graduations and senior banquets, flower petals, things like that. There were a couple photographs but no indication who the people in them might have been.

Song: “Don’t Rush The Good Things” by Tina Turner. I still love when she starts to scream.

So that was pretty cool. This is the kind of thing you hear stories about, and, actually, it is rather similar to a plot development in the novel I started in September, although in that, the main character discovers a cache of love letters to her mother that were not written by her father. I guess that makes me unoriginal….ah well.

So, the rundown looks like:

–Busy still at KGOU. This past show was our best ever, and thanks to people who called/emailed to say so.
–Trying to figure out if I want to do both Masters degrees, or if I want to just stick with MPW. Next semester I’m taking a class called “Humor Writing.” How effing cool is that?
–As much as I love Ana, I’ve loved having the labs to myself. It’s more stressful, but it’s very rewarding.

Song: “A Life of Possibilities” by Dismemberment Plan. Love that guitar riff.

There’s a guy in the lab who kinda looks like Jonathan Awtrey, who was kind enough to write on my Facebook wall today, according to my email inbox. I guess I should go look at that.